TideeKleen Waste Management Company Case study (Case Study Sample)

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TideeKleen Waste Management Company Case study
Introduction
The case of TideeKleen Waste Management Company Inc. is primarily an ethics question. This company faces a drop in revenues and profitability as well as a significant reduction in its share prices at the market because of its destructive past business practices with regard to the operation of an old waste plant. The company has to choose between three alternative courses of action which are aimed at addressing the situation. The first alternative involves the splitting of the company through the formation of a new company and transferring the strong part of the business to this new company while maintaining the toxic business portfolio in the current company pending its collapse. The second alternative would be to decommission the old troubled plant at the company’s cost and taking up an offer arrangement with a new partner with questionable ethical practices, preferably to cut costs. The last option would be to phase out the old plant, retire redundant workers and increase its debts. These options will be evaluated from an ethical point of view in order to determine the most acceptable alternative. This evaluation will take the deontological and teleological perspectives of the three options. Thereafter, a relativism and absolutism approach to ethics will be used to assess the three options and lastly, the Corporate Social Responsibility impact of the three alternatives will be evaluated.
Deontological ethics is concerned with what is fundamentally right. It does not look at the impact of the actions as long as these actions are regarded as morally correct. Deontological ethics also commonly referred to as Kantianism, named after the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, dictates that the sense of what is right comes from within us and is based on our awareness of what is regarded as good (Flight and Maecham 203). Looking at the three options from the deontological perspective we deduce a number of conclusions.
Option A
Splitting the TideeKleen, to form NewKleen and then transferring the profitable portfolio of the old company and leaving TideeKleen with an old, toxic business having obsolete machinery pending the filing for bankruptcy is fundamentally wrong. It is known that during bankruptcy a corporation’s assets are sold off to discharge its liabilities and there is usually the ranking of creditors and charges to determine who gets paid first (Bhandari and Weiss 211). In case the realizable value of assets is not sufficient to cover all the liabilities, then the unsecured creditors and those creditors with a floating charge will not be paid and they would not have a claim against the company, in this case TideeKleen. The unsecured creditors who might lose in this case include pensioners and injured workers as well as the government presuming that the contaminated site is not cleaned by the company before its bankruptcy application. Avoiding one’s obligations which seems likely in this scenario is fundamentally wrong and therefore unacceptable from the deontological ethics perspective.
Option B
From a deontological angle, the decommissioning of the old plant at TideeKleen’s appears to be a fundamentally acceptable view. The net loss of Canadian jobs in this arrangement is a negative consequence of this approach. However, the deontological approach does not consider the consequences of actions in determining whether the action is good or bad. This therefore reinforces the goodness of this approach according to the deontological view. It is however noteworthy to state that this option involves an arrangement with Freedom Coast Ventures a company which employs cheap labor, uses low-tech methods which would in the long run compromise the health of its workers and destroy the surrounding environment. This is morally wrong and presents a shortcoming of this option if the deontological approach is to be strictly considered.
Option C
From the deontological perspective, Option C qualifies as the best choice under the circumstances. The phasing out of the old system and the cleanup of the contaminated site at the cost of the company is a way in which the company owns up to its past mistakes and attempts to meet its obligation. Under this approach, the company would take up more debt and avoid laying off its workers. The fact that GSG has issued an ultimatum to the TK board if they do not adopt either option A or B is also a consequence of the decision to adopt Option C and should not be considered in making a choice under the deontological approach. Moreover from a deontological perspective, the consequences of actions are not considered in upholding a particular decision as either right or wrong (Todd and Gilbert 69).
The Teleological approach makes moral decisions about the various courses of action by considering the consequences of those actions (Spinello 11). The Teleological Approach is also referred to as the consequentialism approach because of its basic definition. This approach has two versions namely egoism and utilitarianism/pluralism (Gluchman 4). Egoism looks at what is best for a particular individual or group of individual or an entity under consideration whereas utilitarianism looks at what is best for a greater number of participants or parties affected by a particular decision or action. In determining the best course of action, the best possible outcome or consequence is selected depending on whether the egoism or utilitarianism version prevails. Using the Teleological Approach, the three options faced by TideeKleen Waste Management Company Inc can be analyzed as follows:
Option A
Under the egoism version of teleological ethics, the shareholders may only look at their own interest and this option provides a suitable alternative. Transferring TideeKleen’s productive assets to NewKleen would ensure that they get a similar shareholding in the new company and the value of these new shares in NewKleen will increase to $50 up from a current market price of $30. Coupled with the fact that if TideeKleen files for bankruptcy, the obligations to pay pensioners, injured workers and cleaning the contaminated site will be avoided, this alternative provides a good monetary incentive to the current shareholders. On the other hand, considering the utilitarianism approach, allowing TideeKleen to go into bankruptcy with the dire consequences to the pensioners, injured workers, redundant workers from the discontinued plant, the government, and Halo Fund; its green investor, would be ethically incorrect because this defeats the principle of the greater good.
Option B
From an Egoist teleological point of view, the decision to engage Freedom Coast Venture (FC) which plans to open a facility in Africa would be profitable to both TideeKleen and FC. From a Utilitarian point of view however, this option may not be very attractive because Freedom Coast Ventures uses low-tech labor intensive techniques which would end up exposing the local community to carcinogenic compounds increasing their risk to cancer. This, coupled by the fact that the African country is already plagued by the Ebola virus and endemic water borne infectious diseases, would result into an even higher mortality rate. However these morbid conditions would be alleviated by the decision to provide clean drinking water as well as a well-equipped medical clinic. This option will also result in a relocation of Canadian Jobs to Liberia which would be a good thing to the Liberians and a negative thing to the Canadians thereby cancelling out its positive consequence. From a Utilitarian teleological point of view, this option does not seem so favorably, however from en egoism point of view it could be ethically acceptable.
Option C
From a utilitarian teleological viewpoint, Option C provides the best alternative. The decision to decommission the old contaminated plant is good for both the image of the company and the environment. Such a decision will make Halo Fund, the green investor happy as well. Additionally, the option to reduce the company’s workforce through retirement rather than layoffs is good for the employees. The agreement by the unions to offer modest wage concessions woul...